Anyone else think caster has suffered this expansion? (hopes for the future)

[Dahlinea]

My hopes for SMN, to make it more engaging and less braindead:

1) Eiliminate the mandatory Summon Bahamut/Phoenix condition to access the 3 lego summons and make them ready to use;
2) Instead of spend gems to summon, make so you fill a "gem gauge" when you summon;
3) Let me repeat lego summons if I see fit to do so;
4) Return Outburst as basic AoE spell and move Tri-disaster back to an oGCD that now gets ready whenever the Gem gauge is filled and spend the gauge gems when used, enabling the legos to be summoned again afterwards;
5) Put Energy Drain/Syphoon at 30 secs CD again and replace Fester with an oGCD Ruin IV;
6) Delete Carbuncle (as a dummy pet on the field) and add it as a separate support summon that apply a shield to party and go away after using its skill;
7) Being the summon with your hardcasts, make so Ifrit is the one providing the most damage of all summons and make his abilities single target.
8) Make Garuda's abilities all AoE oriented turning it into a summon specialized in AoE damage again (in dungeons, add phases, etc)
9) Keep Titan the instacast single target summon to go but reduce its AoE effectiveness;
10) Give back to Phoenix its two spell combo, instead of mashing the same button for six times;
11) Make Bahamut/Phoenix uses their attacks only when we use their spells like it was in ShB. There'll probably be no issues with ghosting their first attack now that their Summon skill is GCD;
12) Remove the limit of Gemshine spell casts for your current elemental attunement.


So basically: split Demis from I/T/G and make legos rotation its own system, let us repeat the summons that fill the gem gauge instead of forcing us to use all three needlessly and make them more specialized again (Ifrit the stronger one with single target hardcast spells and abilities, Titan with single target instacast spells and abilites, and Garuda with AoE hard and insta cast spells and abilities)

[Tamaerl]

Boss hitboxes should probably go back to what they were pre-Endwalker. The large hitboxes making it braindead easy for melee to stay in attack range has done perhaps the most harm to casters this expansion.

[Sequora]

Boss hitboxes should probably go back to what they were pre-Endwalker. The large hitboxes making it braindead easy for melee to stay in attack range has done perhaps the most harm to casters this expansion.

I would rather casters just deal closer damage to melee DPS than to make it purposefully more challenging for melee to keep uptime. That's not fun.

[tearagion]

I would rather casters just deal closer damage to melee DPS than to make it purposefully more challenging for melee to keep uptime. That's not fun.

if melee players don't find it fun to try to stay in melee range they should consider the physranged role

[Valence]

if melee players don't find it fun to try to stay in melee range they should consider the physranged role

Or a summoner role...

That's why I play rphys, but then I'm being told because I don't like it I don't deserve the same kind of damage output. The mentality behind this design is absolutely genius.

[Renathras]

if melee players don't find it fun to try to stay in melee range they should consider the physranged role

Kind of agree, honestly. That's the entire point of the Melee role and why it has higher damage in the first place, and a lot of people actually LIKED fighting for uptime and positionals on the Jobs that offered it. MNK had to be completely reworked to adjust to the fact its core rotation absent positionals was rather...bland.

[Denji]

Boss hitboxes should probably go back to what they were pre-Endwalker. The large hitboxes making it braindead easy for melee to stay in attack range has done perhaps the most harm to casters this expansion.

i'm fairly certain the change was to accommodate sages screaming phlegma balls every 40-80 seconds but you do have a point.

[Connor]

I feel like casters and ranged phys have both suffered greatly in Endwalker lol. Physical Ranged may as well be renamed to ‘Dancer and the other two you don’t use’ lol. Summoner and Red Mage just feel ‘meh’, you don’t really have anything helpful if nobody is dying, but you also don’t have high enough damage to justify having 0 functional utility lol. Which, really, is more of a game design (and community) issue, than a job design one. Ultimately you just end up losing dps over taking Black Mage.

I don’t agree with Summoner / Red Mage being so heavily penalised for having support utility. I mean, if not just for the fact that as a Red Mage you will absolutely be shit on for using Vercure. And Summoner has no control over its utility in the first place so Everlasting Flight barely counts lol. Unfortunately it’s that exact thinking that’s caused the game to become the way it is; everything is perfectly optimised. Which means less abilities (lower damage variation), fixed rotations, no DoTs because unfair advantages on certain fights (e.g boss cannot be targeted ) may skew damage outputs, and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if they deleted Vercure, Verraise, Everlasting Flight and Rekindle. All they do is get in the way of optimisation…right?

[Valence]

I feel like casters and ranged phys have both suffered greatly in Endwalker lol. Physical Ranged may as well be renamed to ‘Dancer and the other two you don’t use’ lol. Summoner and Red Mage just feel ‘meh’, you don’t really have anything helpful if nobody is dying, but you also don’t have high enough damage to justify having 0 functional utility lol. Which, really, is more of a game design (and community) issue, than a job design one. Ultimately you just end up losing dps over taking Black Mage.

I don’t agree with Summoner / Red Mage being so heavily penalised for having support utility. I mean, if not just for the fact that as a Red Mage you will absolutely be shit on for using Vercure. And Summoner has no control over its utility in the first place so Everlasting Flight barely counts lol. Unfortunately it’s that exact thinking that’s caused the game to become the way it is; everything is perfectly optimised. Which means less abilities (lower damage variation), fixed rotations, no DoTs because unfair advantages on certain fights (e.g boss cannot be targeted ) may skew damage outputs, and honestly I wouldn’t be surprised if they deleted Vercure, Verraise, Everlasting Flight and Rekindle. All they do is get in the way of optimisation…right?

I'm gonna be pedantic, but please keep in mind that I agree with your post.

1) DNC and the other two you don't use is a meme. BRD and MCH are competitive enough (and kinda surpass DNC those days).
2) RDM actually has Magick Barrier, which is pretty good.
3) SMN may not have any control over everlasting flight, but a good team can still make use of it, since nobody needs to constantly keep the party topped up. Imo it feeds into team skill play.